The invention concerns a tracheal stent for constricted diseased tracheal and/or bronchial sections made out of a plastic shaft.
Furthermore, a tracheal stent is known in the art from U.S. Pat. No. 4,728,328 which is configured in a pipe-shaped fashion and is surrounded by a support spiral. The spiral is coated and wound around the pipe-shaped stent.
A tracheal stent of this kind has become known in the art through U.S. Pat. No. 4,795,465.
The known tracheal stent is comprised from a tracheal arm which splits on one end into two bronchial arms. The tracheal arm as well as the bronchial arms are manufactured from a tube-shaped plastic which is stiff over its entire axial length and forms a stable lumen.
Tracheal stents are normally used when medical application of an artificial tracheal prosthesis is no longer possible or too dangerous. Terminal tumor patients can, by means of suitable palliative measures, have the inner volume of their tracheas kept open for the purposes of breathing in that, by means of an endoscope, inserts or pipe-like stents are introduced into the constricted air pipe. The stents which have been used up to this time exhibit, however, significant disadvantages and insufficiencies in view of the purpose of their use, and with regard to their outer shape, the low mechanical strength of the stent walls, as well as with regard to mucous transport of the natural mucous clearance.
The underlying purpose of the invention is therefore to further improve the known tracheal stent in such a fashion that in can be endoscopically applied without any problems, in that it exhibits sufficient resistance to the pressure from tumors or scars and in that it can adapt to rapid pressure changes in the event of coughing. The seating of the known tracheal stent in the natural trachea is to be improved in such a fashion that it seats with as little pressure as possible on the mucous membrane.